Protesting with the Stars

Kanye West showed his support for Occupy Wall Street. See other famous protesters through the years

Kanye West showed his support for Occupy Wall Street this week. See other radically chic celebrities, including Jane Fonda, Drew Barrymore, Jane Birkin and Marlon Brando.

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Kanye West

The Occupy Wall Street protest has had several celebrity cameos since it began on September 17—including Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore—but it was Kanye West's appearance on October 10 that raised some eyebrows. "Kanye's been a big supporter spiritually for this movement," Russell Simmons said after West posed with protesters, "and he's just here to stand with the people." Never mind that the demonstration denounces greed and the rapper showed up wearing a $355 plaid Givenchy shirt, gold chains, and possibly Balmain jeans.

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Protesting with the Stars

Jane Fonda

Over the years, Jane Fonda has been nearly as famous for her political activism as her acting. She has marched in support of civil rights, women's rights, Native Americans, the Black Panthers, and (in this photograph from the early 1970s) welfare rights. But it was Fonda's visit to Hanoi in 1972 that caused one of the most controversial moments of her career—when she posed atop an anti-aircraft battery. Seen as a North Vietnamese sympathizer and dubbed "Hanoi Jane," Fonda addressed the issue recently on her website: "It was my mistake and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it....a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever....I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm."

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Protesting with the Stars

Susan Sarandon

Like Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon has lent her fame to many causes—including anti-war protests, gay rights, and victims of hunger. In this photograph from 1989, Sarandon marched at a pro-choice rally with her then-partner Tim Robbins, who was holding her daughter, actress Eva Amurri.

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Protesting with the Stars

Drew Barrymore

Once a rebellious teenager, Drew Barrymore is now one of the most powerful actresses in Hollywood and has raised awareness for many causes, including starving children in Africa and gay rights. In 2009, she marched to protest California's Proposition 8, which upheld the state's ban on gay marriage. And in 2012, Barrymore's art will imitate her life—she will play a Greenpeace activist who saves whales in Big Miracle.

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Protesting with the Stars

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Typically, celebrities go to a demonstration, but occasionally the protest comes to them. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged a "bed-in" to denounce the Vietnam war, and supporters and the media made the pilgrimage to their hotel room. Lennon even wrote about the stunt in "The Ballad of John and Yoko": Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton / Talking in our beds for a week. / The newspaper said, "Say what you doing in bed?" / I said, "We're only trying to get us some peace."

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Protesting with the Stars

Mia Farrow

During the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, actress Mia Farrow protested the "Genocide Olympics," so-named because of China's support of the Sudanese government. As Farrow explained on her website: "`One World, One Dream'" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan."

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Protesting with the Stars

Vanessa Redgrave

In 1963, a year after Nelson Mandela was arrested in South Africa and convicted of sabotage, then-26-year-old actress Vanessa Redgrave appeared at an anti-apartheid rally in London's Trafalgar Square. Over the years, Redgrave has also been a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and been a vocal critic of the human rights violations caused by the war on terror.

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Protesting with the Stars

Sigourney Weaver

Among the many messages of Avatar was an allegory about the environment. In 2010, one of the film's stars, Sigourney Weaver, traveled to Brazil with director James Cameron to protest the construction of a hydroelectric dam along the Amazon. "To actually go down there and then to spend so much time with some of the tribes along the Xingu River and hear their very passionate concerns about their way of life disappearing because of this dam; to have that judge postpone the [construction bids] and say there have been irregularities and this needs to be looked at again—I was very impressed that Brazil was taking this into its own hands and moving forward," Weaver told Politics Daily about the cause.

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Protesting with the Stars

Vivienne Westwood

"A lot of people who are well known do things for charity, but I think it's the more bold ones who are political," designer Vivienne Westwood has said of her activism. In 2008, Westwood appeared at a rally in London (alongside actress Honor Blackman, who famously played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger) to protest the British government's proposal to extend the limit a terror suspect can be detained from 28 days to 42. In honor of the cause, 42 balloons were released.

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Protesting with the Stars

Leonard Bernstein

Tom Wolfe coined the term "radical chic" in a 1970 New York magazine article to deride celebrities who embrace political activism, typically to assuage white guilt. In the story, Wolfe satirized composer Leonard Bernstein for hosting a party in support of the Black Panthers in his Park Avenue penthouse, but Bernstein (seen here protesting the Vietnam War) remained undaunted—he continued to support causes throughout his life, including Amnesty International and AmFAR.

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Protesting with the Stars

Jane Birkin

Though she is perhaps best known for her namesake Hermes bag, actress and singer Jane Birkin has long been a vocal advocate for human rights, most notably protesting abuses in Myanmar. In 2010, Birkin (and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy) appeared at a rally in Paris in support of an Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning after a court found her guilty of adultery.

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Protesting with the Stars

Janice Dickinson

In 2007, after announcing that her modeling agency had a "fur-free policy," Janice Dickinson appeared at a PeTA rally in Hollywood where some of her male models stripped to show that they'd rather "go naked than wear fur." But a few years later, Dickinson made a confession to Grazia Daily that undermined her commitment to the cause: "I do have to disclose at this point—I've had some dead, DEAD! fur in my closet coz I got it from Fendi when I modelled for them, years and years and years ago, and I don't want to throw it out! I have worn it when I've been filming in Russia—but I don't really wear it unless it's super cold. So there. You can't out me for wearing fur sometimes `coz I've just outed myself!"

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Protesting with the Stars

Muhammad Ali

After winning the heavyweight championship of the world in 1964, Cassius Clay announced that he had converted to Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and began appearing at Muslim rallies. But it was Ali's protest of the Vietnam War—" I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong," he famously stated—and his refusal to serve in the U.S. military, that caused him to be stripped of his boxing title. He was suspended from the sport for four years until the Supreme Court overturned his draft evasion charges and Ali was allowed to fight again.

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Protesting with the Stars

Ashley Judd

In 2004, Ashley Judd joined with other celebrities—including Julianne Moore, Madeleine Albright, Whoopi Goldberg and Cybill Shepherd (seen here)—and more than a million supporters at the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C., which focused on reproductive rights. Throughout her career, Judd has supported numerous causes, including human rights and AIDS.

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Protesting with the Stars

Barbra Streisand

Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Barbra Streisand attended a benefit at the Hollywood Bowl to raise emergency funds for Israel. The Rally for Israel's survival was attended by many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Peter Sellers and California's governor at the time, Ronald Reagan. More than 40 years later, however, Streisand pulled out of a 60th anniversary concert for Israel, which organizers speculated was related to George W. Bush's scheduled appearance.

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Protesting with the Stars

Richard Gere

Though he campaigns for many causes, including the environment and AIDS awareness, Richard Gere is best known for his support of Tibet. A Buddhist since 1978 and a friend of the Dalai Lama, Gere is a co-founder of the Tibet House and established a foundation to help the Tibetan people.

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Protesting with the Stars

Gloria Steinem

Having been a leading voice in the feminist movement for nearly half a century, Gloria Steinem has marched in support of countless women's rights causes. But in 1970, she attended a rally in New York to protest the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, carrying a provocative poster that read: "The Masculine Mystique."

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Protesting with the Stars

Bianca Jagger

Since the early 1970s, Bianca Jagger has championed human rights and peace across the world, most notably in her native Nicaragua. In 2009, she attended a rally in London's Trafalgar Square to protest an Israeli offensive in Gaza. And as Jagger looked toward Parliament she told the crowd, "I made my speech too soon; I should have waited for them to arrive."

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Protesting with the Stars

Marlon Brando

In a serious show of star power, Marlon Brando attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom alongside Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, and writer James Baldwin. The rally was held in support of civil and economic rights for African-Americans, and was the site of Martin Luther King's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.

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